Fifty per cent of you would fail a food hygiene inspection at home. Here’s why…

Do you pride yourself on the cleanliness of your home? Chances are you could be forgetting about one very important thing.

The fridge is one of the most used area of the kitchen, but can you believe that we’re neglecting them to such an extent that almost half of us would struggle to pass a basic food hygiene inspection? We’re pretty disgusted too.

A national fridge cleanliness survey was conducted by appliance repair company Go-Assist.co.uk, and the findings were pretty revolting.

According to the research, the average fridge hasn’t been properly cleaned for 87 days. That’s more than three times longer than the recommended length of time between cleans. Eww.

Shockingly, almost one in ten Brits can’t even remember the last time they cleaned their fridge. You filthy bunch.

The study surveyed 2000 people from around the UK and found that the UK’s dirty fridge capital is: Brighton! Seventeen per cent of the city’s residents genuinely can’t remember the last time they cleaned their fridge. Among those who do remember, the average time since the last clean is 138 days – five times longer than recommended.

Glasgow is another reluctant award winner, with more residents than anywhere else in the UK leaving their fridge uncleaned for more than a year.

But when it comes to food hygiene ratings, it isn’t just fridge cleanliness that is taken into account. Also important is that a fridge owner is able to measure and adjust the air temperature of their fridge.

A whopping 44 per cent of Brits admitted not knowing what the correct temperature is for a fridge (it’s somewhere between 0 and 5 degrees, FYI), and 14 per cent don’t know how to adjust their fridge’s temperature levels.

Image credit: Bruce Hemming

James Holden, a spokesperson for Go-Assist.co.uk, says: ‘According to our research, a worrying amount of people wrongly believe they don’t need to regularly clean their fridge. But even in a cool environment, food can go off and bacteria can rapidly contaminate other items. It’s really important for hygiene and maintenance reasons to regularly clean your fridge.’

‘We recommend doing a deep clean of your fridge every four weeks. To make life a little bit easier, schedule your next clean the day before you do your food shopping. This way, there will be fewer items to remove from the fridge before cleaning.’

‘Put any perishables in a cool box to keep them fresh, remove shelves and crispers and use lukewarm soapy water. It’s also really important to unplug your fridge before cleaning it out.’